Snipping Tool Windows 7

Sometimes, the best way to get a copy of something is to screenshot it from your computer screen. Need a screenshot of a funny comment you saw on Facebook? Want your own copy of that recipe you scanned from your mother’s cookbook? Luckily, Windows 7 has just the right tool for the task.

Called the Snipping Tool, this handy little feature allows people to take screenshots of their current screen, whether in its entirety or just a small part of it.

Here’s how to get started.

1. Access Snipping Tool

To gain access to the Snipping Tool in Windows 7, just head on over to the Search box by clicking on the Start button. Type “snipping tool” and wait for the results to bring up the tool.

2. Choose the Type of Snip

After opening up the tool, you need to choose the kind of capture or screenshot that you want to make. First, click on the dropdown arrow on the New button. You’ll be presented with four kinds of “snips.” Free-form snip means that you have a free hand in determining the shape and size of your snip/screenshot (it can be star-shaped or a random blob- it’s your call). Rectangular snip means that all of your snips are automatically shaped into rectangles. Window snip takes a screenshot of your current window. Full screen snip takes a screenshot of your whole screen.

Once you’ve determined the kind of screenshot that you want, click on it to start the capture process.

3. Start Snipping

To capture a snip, just click and drag your mouse pointer over the area that you want to capture. After releasing the mouse, the “snipped” area will be instantly saved to the Clipboard (which means that you can immediately paste it into a document) and to the Snipping Tool mark-up window.

4. Annotate, Edit, and Share your Snip

If you want to play around with your snip, you can do so at the mark-up window. You can save it for later, or annotate it (there is a pen and highlighter tool), or erase some parts of it. All of these can be accessed from a tool box on the mark-up window. There’s also an option to send snips through email.

Snipping Tool Windows 7 Tips and Tricks

1. You can capture snips of menus by starting the Snipping Tool, pressing Esc then Ctrl + PrtScrn, and selecting the area that you want to capture.

2. If you can’t see the outline whenever you capture snips, you can change its ink color through Tools > Options. You can also remove the outline entirely if you want.

3. Snips can be saved in a variety of image file types like JPEG, PNG, GIF, and HTML.

Now Snipping Tool is great and all, but searching for it every time that you want to use it can be such a big hassle especially if you’re capturing a lot of screenshots. Thankfully, SnapMyScreen makes it a lot easier to take screenshots/snips. It is automatically installed on your browser, so you won’t have to open another program. Just go to the site, download it, and snip away!